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The airtime co. im with has a shark. He only runs older systems has a year and half experience and calls himself a "senior technician". Which wouldn't bother me if he knew is crap, but if unit doesn't sale then he is lost.

I came across a 9 yr old 4 ton system with a grounded scroll compressor, I was instructed to quote $4048.00 for new compressor. When I asked if they were joking they said no we want to sell them a new system.

Heard one story a lady was sold a drain pan floatswitch for $1000.00. He used to work for the yellow vans and I don't think he was kidding either.

On the resi side of service at the company I work for, I fear that we are becoming one of these types of places.

It hit 85 with high humidity this week and the owner made it so any call that comes in we take, completely disregarding contract and warranty customers. In the field it's become showing face, collecting service call charge and rescheduling. At the office it's all about clearing the board. The girls are behind on paperwork by at least a week. The owner doesn't seem to care about any type of craftsmanship or attention to detail and the amount of call backs because of the lack of quality time normally allowed for proper repair. Just get it running and collect. The customers call and ream out the service dept. or management and he couldn't care less. It wasn't like this last summer. It's a freeking joke.

I don't plan on staying at this company forever and I had a plan on when I was going to pursue other employment but if this continues it will accelerate that process. The goal is to work for a commercial service company without a install department(also a joke at my company, rushed to get done, then we get sent back to fix the mistakes). I can't tolerate short changing people who spend large sums to get half a$$ed results. There's too much of that into today's world.

Unfortunately, I'm all too well schooled in the sales-tech area, this is why I avoid it like the plague. I worked at a franchise company that was actually a decently run company albeit an inexperienced one, this was my first two years as a tech and I actually had a great relationship with the owner who took me under his wing, as a company we largely ignored the regional "manager" who would come in and pitch their snake oil, then it was sold and the new owner fully embraced the sales approach.

Under new ownership we were immediately switched to a flat rate pay based on a tiered ticket structure, weekly sales meetings, everyone's name on a board with our average ticket price, contract/call ratio, sold systems/calls ratio and how much money we had brought in year to date. There were 3 legit techs involved in this changeover and we all left, company went out of business within a year.

The low light of this period for me was a lady who was a real "laydown", that's sales lingo for someone who takes anything you offer at any price like the $1000 float switch posted earlier, all I had to do was put in a capacitor, her equipment was about 5 years old and at the end I told her about our, outrageous, warranty program that had 3-4 tiers as was required to be offered by our company, they would call and do surveys randomly to see if we were. To my absolute shock she bought a bogus $500 plan that basically only credited her back $500 if the compressor failed within 10years of the units life which would've been a parts warranty anyway and she only had 4-5 years left for her unit btw they just marked up the compressor failure $500 to cover it. I was shocked, I didn't know what to do so I collected and left, next Monday they parade me around in front of everyone talking about how great a job I did and how I was an example of someone who took their job seriously and that if I could sale a gold or platinum or whatever it's called plan that everyone should really think hard about what they were doing wrong, I still feel bad about that call and the sales meeting that followed, left about two months into the new ownership.

Unfortunately these companies have a real presence in our industry which is sad and frustrating, it hurts both the industry and our customers. People work too hard to have to put up with this garbage.

Yeah some aren't so bad but the ones that are really tip the balance and need to be pushed out by good contractors with good techs.

I recently worked for a company here in Dallas for a VERY short time that is the perfect example of a crooked company . Some of you may know them. Green vans with Einstein on the side. They recently had, or may still have, a "sales tech" that was going around stabbing coils, loosening piston bodies, and doing all sorts of other dirty little tricks to show refrigerant leaks and condemn equipment. He was telling some of the other techs what he was doing and it eventually made it back to the service manager. "Uh oh!!! You're in trouble now!!!"

He was pulled into the office and basically told not to discuss his practices with the other technicians. He wasn't told to stop doing what he was doing, or given any type of reprimand. He was told to just keep his mouth shut so the other techs wouldn't get all worked up about it.

I recently worked for a company here in Dallas for a VERY short time that is the perfect example of a crooked company . Some of you may know them. Green vans with Einstein on the side. They recently had, or may still have, a "sales tech" that was going around stabbing coils, loosening piston bodies, and doing all sorts of other dirty little tricks to show refrigerant leaks and condemn equipment. He was telling some of the other techs what he was doing and it eventually made it back to the service manager. "Uh oh!!! You're in trouble now!!!"

He was pulled into the office and basically told not to discuss his practices with the other technicians. He wasn't told to stop doing what he was doing, or given any type of reprimand. He was told to just keep his mouth shut so the other techs wouldn't get all worked up about it.

I know that company and many others just like them. I'm not sure why dishonesty and no integrity is the method of gain.

I usually give a 2 hr window. I certainly am not going to provide my services for free because crap happens.

Had a man call me in the exceptionally hot mid summer and it was hard to get anyone to his home within a day or two. I told him I'd be there between 4 and 5 p.m the same day. I had a bad hot day and worked my butt off to be there at 4:35 pm. I groaned as I got out of the truck and while attaching my "getting so heavy" tool pouch, I was met with the man complaining why I wasn't there at 4 pm as I said I would be. I explained I told him 4-5, and that I never make exact appointments. He was arrogant and insisted I said 4 pm. I simply turned around, put my pouch up and drove away and left him standing there wishing he had shut up and should have just been happy I was there.
Don't need people like that.

Sounds like you need a lesson on customer service. It's amazing w/that kind of attitude how you're still in business.

Sounds like you need a lesson on customer service. It's amazing w/that kind of attitude how you're still in business.

How is that lack of customer service? Are we expected to be a doormat for ***holes? I believe getting out to a new customer in the heat of the summer on the same Day is excellent customer service. I will not put up with a customer treating me like that. I will not be a doormat. I have and will move on to a customer who might appreciate the comfort service I provide. The other guy, will he can just wait.

Not techs, salesmen and they are as dirty as car salesmen. I like watching the 60 seconds episodes about bad ac companies and duct cleaning companies, how do you sleep at night lying to people like that

Funny. I've seen those 60min videos too, but I e only seen co's like your all's stung, not One Hour.

I do believe that the policy for the one hour places around here is you call, they tell you what time they'll be there, and they come in a one hour window of the time they tell you.

Everytime I hear there commercials it just ticks me off. I know how they operate, they rip off the customers and they rip off the technicians. They advertise that no matter what time you call, you don't get an answering service, you get right through to a technician. So if you call at 1am it goes right to the on-call techs phone, and if he doesn't answer right away he gets yelled at.

They pay the technicians a low wage and commission on what they sell. If a customer calls at 1am you have to answer, and you have to go there. So you go at 1am and change an igniter on their furnace and make about $15 on your service call, while your company charges the customer an outrages after-hour fee, plus big mark-up on the parts.

Where do you get your info? Because it's incorrect. Purposefully incorrect.

Recently interviewed with said company in yellow vans. No way would I work there. They made it clear its all about sales. While waiting in the lobby, I could hear them role playing a service call and showing the techs how to turn it into a sale.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

They also have technical training. Why don't you mention that? Oh, that's right: you were only there for a second or two and that somehow makes you an expert on One Hour.

Not all airtime companies are bad. I currently work at one. I am NOT a salesman and we do not sell parts that aren't bad(I will get fired on the spot for this) or systems on every call. I only sell a system when I condem a big price object on an old (20+) systems. Now the yellow vans do have a bad rep around here with an high tech turn over rate and create a bad rep for airtime.

Creed, it doesn't matter what you post. They're a bunch of guys here who could care less about customer service, acting &amp; dressing like pros, or seeing the value in replacing older systems. They just wanna continue doing things the old way thinking change is unnecessary &amp; that somehow they'll remain relevant.